A Portage Life in the Spotlight: Ela Pascua

Ela-PascuaNo matter how planned out someone may have their life, there are always unexpected twists and turns. This week's Portage Life in the Spotlight' life took a quick unexpected turn when she moved to the United States and found a love for journalism.

Ela Pascua, a junior at Portage High School, was born in the Philippines and when she was in sixth grade, moved to the U.S. with her mother and stepfather. Up until moving to the U.S., Pascua had never seen snow or even a squirrel. Most importantly, she had no idea that schools offered classes such as yearbook and newspaper.

Pascua is a creative person, being interested in painting and piano. This creativity later helped her when she enrolled in the Journalism class at PHS her freshman year. When she first started the class, she had no idea that it was a prerequisite for the yearbook class.

The curriculum in the class centered on preparing her for going into a real publication class. According to Pascua, it involved quite a bit of assignments and tight deadlines. Even with the tight deadlines, she did not get stressed and it made her even more excited to join the yearbook staff, Legend, the next year.

"During Journalism, we had to make a yearbook cover, CD cover, and those especially were fun to do," Pascua said. "All first semester, I was hearing about the pubs classes going to all these different conventions in different cities, like Seattle, and it brought out my love for journalism even more."

Near the end of the first semester, Pascua's Journalism teacher, Melissa Deavers-Lowie came to her and asked her to join the yearbook staff starting the second semester. She was honored with the invitation, but due to scheduling conflicts, was unable to join the staff until her sophomore year.

Once Pascua joined the award winning Legend staff last year, she became intrigued with the design aspect of the yearbook and decided she wanted to solely put her attention on it.

"The first thing I do when I start a page is design a graphic or take a picture and background out of it," Pascua said. "I've always focused more on the design than the writing part: that's why I'm not in newspaper. Design is just my priority."

At the end of her sophomore year when her advisor, Deavers-Lowie, was taking applications for this year's editor-in-chief, Pascua decided she wanted to apply. Deavers-Lowie decided she was the perfect candidate for the position.

"Becoming editor-in-chief has boosted my confidence way up," Pascua said. "I have to always be talking to my staff. I really had to get out of my comfort zone and made sure I was heard and everyone would listen to me."

As editor-in-chief, her main responsibilities are to make sure every page has every aspect that it needs to be the best that it can be.

"Every little thing has to be perfect," Pascua said. "Spelling, folios, and the little things that most people don't notice are what I always have to keep my eye out for."

Pascua has quite a bit of ideas to keep her staff motivated and to produce an award winning book.

"We haven't done this yet, but after every deadline I want to get the staff together and do a bonfire," Pascua said. "I want us to bond and be friends."

This being only Pascua's second year on the staff makes her nervous for being editor-in-chief, but she knows with keeping her staff motivated, she will succeed.